1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a gas turbine arrangement that includes at least one gas turbine, a compressor and a pressure wave machine acting as an energy exchanger. More particularly, the present invention relates to a gas turbine arrangement including a combustion chamber arrangement for improved operating efficiency and control.
2. Discussion of Background
A gas turbine arrangement having a compressor for the combustion air, a gas turbine, and a pressure wave machine acting as an energy exchanger is disclosed, for example, in EP-0 179 233 B1. In this gas turbine arrangement, an energy exchanger which brings combustion air precompressed in a low-pressure compressor to an even higher pressure level is connected upstream of the gas turbine. A separate combustion chamber is connected upstream of the energy exchanger, the said combustion chamber being operated with gas or oil as the fuel and its combustion air being branched off from a high-pressure conduit for the supercharged air at the higher pressure level downstream of the energy exchanger. The high-pressure conduit carries the main part of the supercharged air into a combustion chamber in which gas or oil is burnt together with this air to form driving gas at high pressure and high temperature, which is passed into a high-pressure part of the gas turbine and drives this part. The somewhat cooled and somewhat expanded gases which have released part of their energy in supercharging the combustion air in the energy exchanger, are passed, after their emergence, into a basic part of the gas turbine, where they are mixed with the driving gas expanded in the high-pressure part and, together with this driving gas, further drive the gas turbine.
In this gas turbine arrangement, the energy exchanger is operated at a comparatively low operating temperature. At higher operating temperatures, an additional increase in the efficiency of the arrangement would be possible.